Mango Languages

[Carmody]

My library advised me today that it now has free access to Mango Languages. I am not familiar with Mango and don't hear it discussed here. Since I don't do anything without first consulting this Forum I will probably ignore Mango. Is that correct?

http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2489427,00.asp

Also,

For example, I poked around the French Premiere content and found I could watch entire movies, scene by scene, with both English and French subtitles enabled (or just one or the other if I preferred). At the end of the scene was a breakdown of the dialogue so I could examine it more slowly and closely.......As compelling a deal as Mango Languages seems to offer, I can't recommend it for learning a new language. There may be some material worth exploring, such as Premiere movie content, but, on the whole, you can find better resources to learn or practice a language.

[Speakeasy]

As far as I understand, Mango Languages (http://mangolanguages.com/index.html) is a pay-for-service online/app introduction to a large number of languages. Individual subscriptions are presently offered at $20/month or $175/year.

A quick search of this forum yields a small number of discussion threads wherein Mango Languages is mentioned. Comments on the service are sparse and vary from positive to mixed. The few comments on the HTLAL fall within the same range. I get the impression that users liked the quality of Mango Languages but, given its pricing in an environment that is rich with free services having similar features, they simply looked and moved on ((for example, for the price of an annual subscription ($175) one could almost cover the cost of two levels of Assimil)). The most extensive discussion of Mango Languages was recorded under the following thread in February 2014:

Has anyone used Mango Languages?
http://how-to-learn-any-language.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=38047&PN=13&TPN=1

If the service is free to you, I recommend that you "kick the tires" with a language that you already know fairly well, follow-up with a "test drive" of the system with a language that you do not know at all and let us know

[Carmody]

Well our library system in Westchester NY has it for free and I tried the first module. I found it really poor. But it is the link thru to the movies that I am looking for and they are not coming up at this time. The library director is coming in Monday and maybe he will know if that module is including in this particular release.

In the meantime, it is definitely not worth paying any money for......

[lrnarabic]

I completely disagree.

In my opinion, Mango's French is excellent! I completed Duolingo's French, but my pronunciation was horrible. Mango helps tremendously with pronunciation by including English transliterations.

Ultimately, I would suggest both Duolingo and Mango for a good foundation in (low) intermediate French.

Yale's "French in Action" is helpful too but only if read the French transcript before and even during the videos.

[Xenops]

Since my library system has this for free, I thought I would give it a try and let you know what I think.

First of all, languages will vary by how many learning modules there are: Latin American Spanish has the most, while smaller languages like Finnish, varieties of Arabic and Scottish Gaelic only have one module. A module will include ten lessons. Here is a list of the languages:

Arabic, Egyptian
Arabic, Iraqi
Arabic, Levantine
Arabic, Modern Standard
Armenian
Azerbaijani
Bengali
Cherokee
Chinese, Cantonese
Chinese, Mandarin
Croatian
Czech
Danish
Dari
Dutch
Dzongkha
English
English, Shakespearean
Filipino, Tagalog
Finnish
French
French, Canadian
German
Greek, Ancient
Greek, Koine
Greek, Modern
Haitian Creole
Hawaiian
Hebrew, Biblical
Hebrew, Modern
Hindi
Hungarian
Icelandic
Igbo
Indonesian
Irish, Standard
Italian
Japanese
Javanese
Kazakh
Korean
Latin
Malay
Malayalam
Norwegian
Pashto
Persian, Farsi
Pirate
Polish
Portuguese, Brazilian
Punjabi, Pakistani
Romanian
Russian
Scottish Gaelic
Serbian
Shanghainese
Slovak
Spanish, Castilian
Spanish, Latin American
Swahili
Swedish
Tamil
Telugu
Thai
Turkish
Tuvan
Ukrainian
Urdu
Uzbek
Vietnamese
Yiddish

The modules/lessons themselves strongly remind me of Duolingo or the official Memrise language, with the addition of an English approximate phonetic spelling. For example they give the spelling for Feasgar as FESkur. They have a voice comparison gadget, but with my computer microphone I do not get a result when I say the word. They also go over every word very slowly. You will spend 10 slides learning one word. As far as language learning, the modules aren't much of an improvement over the free competitors.

However, there is a side project that I hope they develop further-- they have a few (real) movies with:

1. subtitles in both languages
2. color coded so you can identify which word
3. different options for learning, like interactive versus passive
4. explanations of words and grammar points
5. Practice

Currently they have 2 French movies, about 10 LA Spanish, 3 German, 3 Italian, 1 Japanese, and 3-4 Chinese. They also have an assortment of Spanish cartoons aimed towards kids. If they would spend their time developing a library of these, this would make them very competitive. As it is now, probably not worth it to pay a subscription, but if you have library access, I think the movie portion would only help you.

[Cavesa]

That PCmag review is hilarious

If you're serious about learning a language, you're much better off with Rosetta Stone$169.00 at Rosetta Stone, PCMag's Editors' Choice among paid language-learning programs, or Duolingo, the Editors' Choice among free programs.

Despite all that, they are not entirely wrong, you would probably be better served elsewhere . It looks like the main advantage of Mango languages seems to be the amount of languages. Yes, it is probably a challenge to find beginner stuff for four Arabic variants, Dzongkha, Tagalog, Armenian, etc.

But it looks like a lot of money for not that much progress in the languages with more alternatives, it looks suspiciously colourful (yes, that sounds weird.

I looked at the info about Greek and French. The Modern Greek learners may be excited there is something (2 levels), but now there is Duolingo and Language Transfer and I even guess they could get you further. French: there are four levels, which looks nice at first but the last one is nowhere near the intermediate level. It is perhaps A2ish stuff. Perhaps. So, again there are lots of better alternatives, such as a normal coursebook with audio.

Also, I find it really weird, when a language program is so focused on being sold to libraries, schools, and similar institutions. These have one thing in common: the people who buy this stuff are usually not the people who use this stuff, and usually do not even understand what the user needs. The marketing clearly shows it. There is only one offer for individual learners and it is not even an attractive one, most services like this have several offers giving a bonus to long term subscribers.

You know, I've been looking around for stuff like this lately. My boyfriend will need to learn either French or German, when we are moving abroad in a year. He is not a bookish type, so it is gonna be a challenge. And I am a bit frustrated with most tools like this being just bad. As if it didn't suffice he'll need to use a non-native base. His English is quite good but still. At least he should be getting the most value for the increased efforts of learning French or German from English. And the market being flooded with stuff like this isn't helping.

[zenmonkey]

Pirate?

---
I looked at the App interface for iOS and it is pretty nicely done. I particularly like that you can swipe over things as fast as you want for sections you already know, unlike duolingo with a forced learning path.

The narrator is annoying, but you can turn that off.
The auto play function is also nicely written.

Would I pay $20 a month? I don't know - not for my current set of languages, I'm full up on resources.
But I saw that you can get it for free in many US locations through a library.

[zenmonkey]

My boyfriend will need to learn either French or German, when we are moving abroad in a year. He is not a bookish type, so it is gonna be a challenge. And I am a bit frustrated with most tools like this being just bad. As if it didn't suffice he'll need to use a non-native base. His English is quite good but still. At least he should be getting the most value for the increased efforts of learning French or German from English. And the market being flooded with stuff like this isn't helping.

I think these types of Apps work for certain audiences - I prefer to allow each to try and see what works for them. My youngest enjoyed duolingo for Italian (and later moved on to directly reading HP)... What might not fit you, might fit your boyfriend. It isn't that this is inherently bad when it doesn't fit your method or needs, the content is correct and works - mango has quite the following (and I say that as someone who was surprised to discover them about 3 months ago but have not in anyway adopted them).

My gf loves modules and tools that I have no taste for - and we each find the material that we feel comfortable using.

By the way, why wait a year? Your bf should take a Pascal-like Wager - start studying German or French now. If a year from now you decide to go to the country he's studying he's won a year - if not, he hasn't lost anything versus waiting.

[Cavesa]

Thanks for good advice! I'll keep that on mind, even though I think Mango won't be the winner of this competition.

By the way, why wait a year? Your bf should take a Pascal-like Wager - start studying German or French now. If a year from now you decide to go to the country he's studying he's won a year - if not, he hasn't lost anything versus waiting.

Because he is so lost in his own studies that he simply doesn't want to add a language to it. And he doesn't want to learn something "in vain". It would mean a world to me, if he believed in my abilities and chances so much he would start learning French, but I understand it may not be so. I am ok with the fact he'll need to catch up later, even if it means I'll be the main source of income for some time and it will be tough.

[zenmonkey]

Thanks for good advice! I'll keep that on mind, even though I think Mango won't be the winner of this competition.

By the way, why wait a year? Your bf should take a Pascal-like Wager - start studying German or French now. If a year from now you decide to go to the country he's studying he's won a year - if not, he hasn't lost anything versus waiting.

Because he is so lost in his own studies that he simply doesn't want to add a language to it. And he doesn't want to learn something "in vain". It would mean a world to me, if he believed in my abilities and chances so much he would start learning French, but I understand it may not be so. I am ok with the fact he'll need to catch up later, even if it means I'll be the main source of income for some time and it will be tough.

Best of luck and I hope it works out for you in France.